Hard Things
by Emily Gray Tedrowe
May called the girls down to the front hall to get their shoes on. Now. Her husband Mike’s voice, get them out of here, left no room for questions. Carsten wanted the slide-ons with the purple stars but only one, the right one, was in the tumble of shoes in the entryway’s front closet. “It doesn’t matter,” May said, crouching to find another shoe, any left shoe, while Carsten worked up to a whine. Tinsley was already in flip-flops a little too big for her, the ones May had meant to send back for a size down. A split second hesitation—make Tinsley change into sneakers?—but Mike’s footsteps up to the attic, where he’d locked the air rifle, made her forget everything else. Keys, phone. Should she find her wallet? There was that bakery on--
“Take me with you,” her sister-in-law Abby said, unmoving. She was stretched out on the living room couch, with baby Isobel face down on her chest, one week old today. Big as a loaf of bread. “Or maybe I’ll just give PETA a call. Groundhog slaughter, imminent.”
May could only shake her head, wishing she hadn’t noticed the glass of water she’d brought Abby right there on the coffee table, no coaster. Their house was spacious, a three-bedroom corner-lot Colonial, but not exactly large enough for two families—one in crisis. With one hand she took things away from the girls, an uncapped marker, an indoor lovey, and with another handed them each a hoodie. They chattered a hundred questions, thrown by the change of plans: what about their morning show? And waffles? Those big yellow caterpillars that stuck to the playground swings? With a backward glance at Abby—yes, those first days were impossible for sleep and sanity but still, getting to lie on the couch—May swept her girls out the front, toed aside two packages, and pulled the door shut behind them.
Mike carried the air rifle down from the attic and through the living room, avoiding a too-close look at his sister on the couch in case her boobs were out for nursing. He went into the sunroom. He hadn’t even had a chance to unbox the fucking thing and now every second counted. He sat on one of the girls’ tiny stools and set the box on their crafts table. It was no problem to rip the taped seams but goddamnit these plastic cable ties. Could he snap them? Mike kicked open the door to the back yard to keep an eye on the hog. Then he ransacked the play kitchen without thinking, miniature weightless objects: a little pot, a wedge of plastic cheese, a made-in-fucking-China stalk of broccoli. In search of something sharp he even dumped out a round woven bin, a hundred thousand dolls, before he caught himself. What, did he think there would be a KA-BAR in the dress-up box? He whipped past Abby to get the kitchen shears and she was sitting up now, saying something but he had no time for it’s not hurting anyone, kum-bay-yah, new mom hormones blah blah blah. He’d heard enough from her last night, they all had. Back at the gun he slit the zip ties on the box and carefully moved a stack of Carsten’s preschool worksheets—Insect Sort (Are You An Insect?)—so he could lay out and assemble the scope and stock and break barrel.
Outside on the patio, across the yard, Neil hunched over his phone. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on the groundhog, after all he was the one who spotted it and alerted Mike. But to be honest, he was just glad for a breather in the last hour of the morning before he drove back out to pick up their two-year-old son Freddie from day care. Ten days ago a derecho had swept through Northbrook and landed its force squarely onto his and Abby’s house, a rented two-bedroom near Lake Sherman. Wind at sixty miles an hour tore trees from the ground and hurled them through the back sliding glass doors. Flooding throughout. Another tree came down on the ceiling in the kitchen. The foyer crumpled, door ripped from its hinges. All this occurred fifteen minutes after Abby and Freddie fled in the car with Neil at work on a job site, losing his mind. Six days later, Abby gave birth to Isobel, whom he was apparently not allowed to call Izzy. They were lucky. He knew, Abby knew, everyone knew how lucky they’d been. No one was hurt. The baby was healthy, Abby said the birth was much easier than Freddie’s, and they had a place to stay, thanks to May and Mike. That didn’t mean he loved being told he was lucky. Maybe that’s how they saw it out here in Highland Park. Where he came from, losing your house and half your shit wasn’t something people tried to sell you on. Also if one more person mentioned renter’s insurance he was going to… No, he didn’t have it. Yes, he knew that was dumb. The house had been an under-the-table deal, rented from Abby’s family friends who used it as an occasional lake home. The owners had been nice, of course, concerned for Abby and the family, checking in. Sent flowers. But the owners were now deep in the weeds with their own insurance, the building would likely be demo’ed, and in any case he and Abby and the kids wouldn’t be living there any time soon. Neil scrolled his call list, seeing who could meet him with a truck to help drag out more of their sodden belongings. Movement on the grass caught his eye: that groundhog, snuffling in a wavy line from under a bush.
Instead of nursing Isobel on the couch—her brother didn’t think she could tell he hated it—Abby carried her upstairs. She was raw with exhaustion and needed to sleep, even ten minutes would help. To close her eyes on the madness of this groundhog thing and last night’s argument. The four of them were staying in Tinsley’s room: Abby and Isobel in Tinsley’s new “big girl bed,” Neil on a blow-up mattress on the floor squeezed next to Freddie’s portable crib. Every night they changed places multiple times. Freddie often slept with Neil on the floor, or sometimes in the twin bed with Abby, which meant she handed Isobel down to Neil or sometimes tried to put her in the pack n’ play. Poor Tinsley must be having fits when she glimpsed her room these days—shades always drawn, overflowing bags of clothes jammed into corners, a diaper pad on her dresser. Abby couldn’t bear the mess of that room right now, though, so she let herself into Mike and May’s bedroom, an oasis of peace in comparison. May even still had her glider, now positioned in a corner by the window. It was the Babyletto boucle one, Crate and Barrel had it for $999, which Abby knew from the last weeks of pregnancy—before the derecho—when she was up with acid reflux, scrolling her phone endlessly for stupid pricy furnishings she wished she didn’t want so badly. Now she eased herself carefully into her sister-in-law’s breastfeeding glider—imagine choosing the ivory color—wincing from the stitches. Isobel latched on with ease, she was a total pro, and Abby dug her hand next to her hip, searching for buttons that adjusted the recliner. Her fingernail snagged on something. Was that a USB port? Yes. Yes it was. This undid her, the tears sliding forth effortlessly. It happened several times a day, frequently while nursing. Why a fucking USB port in the side of a chair meant to rock a baby? How did her little brother Mikey, who used to pick his nose and wipe his finger on his stuffed Dino, have all of this? Where was her family going to live? What about Freddie’s toys, their photo albums, her clothes? How could Neil take off more unpaid time? What if she ran out of maternity leave before they figured things out? Were Freddie’s nightmares normal or should she call someone, who, the pediatrician? Where was her water glass, she was so thirsty. Isobel’s perfect face smushed up against her breast, tiny eyelashes fluttering. Abby sank back, drained. Then she heard the shots.
The school playground was around the curve of Lincolnwood, walkable for May and the girls in fifteen if Tinsley was in a good mood. Carsten would start at the kindergarten in September, so they called it Big Girl School, which had been a mistake. Carsten had a way of emphasizing the phrase oh so innocently while Tinsley’s expression darkened. Today May hurried them past the front entrance and onto the field. Go, she said, and they took off. Hurtled through dewy grass toward the play structure, the swings. For a second she paused, thinking she’d heard something. The air gun? But she had no idea what it would sound like, and the wide spring morning had already absorbed all noise along with the girls’ far-off shouts. Who got to ride the zip line first. May stood in the grass and texted Mike what’s going on? Update pls. Then Abby: did he do it? Her head was pounding, a hangover headache like two heavy stones under her forehead, her eyebrows. They’d overdone it last night, as with the night before, and the night before that. Once all the kids were finally in bed—well, except for Isobel—some serious drinking took place. A way for the four of them to handle the sheer fucked-up situation of Abby and Neil’s home, the outrageous timing with Abby giving birth days later, all of them crammed in May’s house for the foreseeable future. What else could you do but refill the wine glass, and get beer after beer from the basement fridge. Even Abby partook, though minimally, and god knows she looked rough in the mornings too. They all did. It still stung, the way her sister-in-law had goaded her last night (draped like Cleopatra on May’s own couch!), all that you’re as bad as he is, flapping a baby cloth at her brother Mike. She liked to do that, poke at May for not standing up to her husband, and as usual May found it hard to defend herself, all turned around between brother and sister. No, Abby, she hadn’t loved the moment she opened that Amazon box to find a freaking gun. But also, she hated that groundhog! Ankle breaker holes in the yard, bacteria-filled poop piles, the gross humped shape of the thing. But Abby couldn’t stop. Why hadn’t they investigated humane options, why not call in professionals, some bougie service, I mean obviously money isn’t an object. She’d played it like a joke, with a laugh and a shrug. May had wanted to fling wine in her face. Wine she’d bought for them!
A scream from Tinsley made her head jerk up: a fierce summons for swing pushing. Her youngest’s bare feet dangled and she twisted furiously, uselessly, side to side on the unmoving swing. May drew Tinsley back, back, back, and then let her fly. A light tap on her small back each time it returned. No coaching today on how to pump. The sky, even overcast, was too bright in her eyes. May hated how much Mike drank, and how she drank more than she wanted to, in order to make it even. Or normal: two stressed-out parents with young kids, a scary mortgage, everyone did it, etc. How many other new dads in Highland Park had been Marines, vets from both Iraq and Afghanistan? Mike’s ability to use a rifle—this morning—wasn’t from weekend hunting trips in Wisconsin like the kind Neil did with his father and brother. She knew he didn’t want to share with her, or anyone really, what he’d been through in those places. He worked long hours, he went to church with her and the girls every Sunday. So what if last winter he’d delighted Carsten by building her an igloo in the basement out of empty Michelob twelve pack boxes? May made sure not to post any of those photos.
With one hand she texted him everything okay? His immediate response: don’t bring them back yet.
Two shots. They clicked off as smooth as he could want, pop pop, the baby rounds juicing a little adrenaline through his circuits, which was embarrassing. Mike raised his head from the scope, flat on his stomach in the toy room, belt buckle digging into his upper groin. He’d nailed that hog, two in the head, and now it lay still in the grass. About thirty yards, just past the crab apple where Carsten loved to hang from her hands and scrabble her feet wildly, trying to kick up to a branch she could climb. Ha. Fuck you, Abby. He wasn’t really angry at his sister but her teasing last night--calm down, soldier of fortune—had grated.
“You get it?” Neil yelled, from over on the patio. Shit. He’d actually forgotten Neil was out there.
“All good,” Mike called back, pushing up on his forearms. Now all he had to do was handle the aftermath, and get into the city before his workday was too fucked. Squinting from the bright sky, he stepped out into the yard.
But what he saw there was bad, was all wrong, and less than a minute later he was back inside. Rapid spreading warmth in his chest and face, a delayed pounding. It’s fine, he told himself. You’re good. He went to break down the rifle and slipped sideways in the small space of the sunroom. Knocked over the crafts table and—the worst part—dropped his rifle. Dropped his fucking weapon. Like some kind of noob, civilian. Someone they would have ragged on for weeks.
Boot, the guy they called Boot. This kid from South Carolina, he went through all training like a wild man, never shut up about how stoked he was to get over there and fight. He goes from Kaneohe Bay to Camp Lejeune, Lejeune to Balad Air Base, Balad to Haditha, and on his first day in country he falls off a four-foot ladder and breaks his femur. Medevaced back the way he came, into traction at Walter Reed for like three months. As far as Mike knew, the guy never made it to combat. Didn’t stop him from coming to every reunion though.
Mike stayed on the floor. Neil was calling to him from outside and his phone buzzed in his pocket, probably May, but he ignored all of it. His hands were twitchy and damp, and the air was weird, cottony. Mike blinked. His vision clicked back and forth as if he were looking in and out of the scope. There were silver-framed black-and-white photos of the girls on the wall, and they popped toward him and away, close and then away. One was of May on the morning of Tinsley’s baptism, holding her face-out, Tin’s tiny bare feet dangling over May’s forearm. May had her head cocked, slight smile, and Mike loved this one, her shooting him that knowing look of tired happiness--can you believe this—an expression encompassing everything, this crazy full life together, sex on Saturday mornings while Carsten was in the next room watching CocoMelon, how Tinsley said the color “lellow,” the day they closed on this house, their dream home, their forever home. All flowing through the camera lens to him, only to him, from May’s expression on the wall.
He shut his eyes. Inside his throat something surged up, sour and sad. No, he couldn’t think about what he’d done. He had to get out of here.
Neil’s voice, getting closer. “Uh, hey man. Better come see this.”
Abby eased Isobel off her nipple, rolled softly forward to standing. Her stitches tugged hard at the motion. She wiped her face with the back of her sweatshirt cuff and gently bounced back and forth in front of May’s dresser. With one hand she brushed her hair using May’s brush, the boar bristle kind that Kate Middleton owned, avoiding her own reflection in the mirror. Last night she’d overdone it, come down too hard on Mike. On all of them, in fact. But the situation was barbaric, and if no one else was going to say it… Shoot an animal in his own goddamn yard? For no other reason than inconvenience! What if he only wounded it, and the thing staggered away to die slowly, in pain and fear? Jesus, was she the only one who saw the whole picture?
Isobel burped softly. Abby climbed up onto her brother’s bed, knee-walked to its enormous middle, and lowered Isobel into the center of the crisp white duvet cover.
Outside, or downstairs, Neil’s voice was high, excited. That wasn’t his on-the-phone-with-insurance voice. How many calls had he made? Not for the first time she wished they could switch roles. For someone whose job depended on customer service—he was an electrician for high-end residences—Neil could be a pushover. On the other hand, he had no problem walking a fussy baby from 3 to 5 am, something that drove Abby to despair. Maybe she should transition Isobel to formula, have Neil take on more night duty. Abby laid her head on her arm, curled next to her baby. No, she was afraid of any more change. They’d been through too much. In any case, probably a good idea she wasn’t on insurance phone duty. Abby sensed she might lose her shit entirely on some poor call center employee, and she might enjoy it too.
Pounding footfalls up and down the creaky attic staircase. The voices of Neil and Mike, and then the front door slammed. Thank god Isobel was out, arms akimbo, mouth soft and open. Abby tried to understand. Had that been Neil calling to Mike, in a tone of disbelief? For a long minute she waited motionless in the middle of the soothing light grey and buttercream accented room. All she wanted was to doze into the dream-state of her baby’s perfect face. Instead, she went softly downstairs.
May’s house (she knew it was Mike’s house too, but fuck her if she was going to think of it that way) was cool and quiet. Empty-seeming. She looked in the kitchen, bags and bags of recycling that needed to go out. No one in the TV room either, but she noticed that all her family’s stuff—Freddie’s toys, Neil’s fleece, the pressure-relief donut she sat on—had been corralled into a basket placed neatly at one end of the sectional. She listened for Isobel, then eased open the sliding screen door onto the porch. Neil’s phone was face down on the patio table, on top of the legal pad filled with notes, names, phone numbers.
“Neil?”
Abby went down the wood stairs and tentatively out onto the lawn. She was barefoot. Was there a dead animal on the grass, would she step on it? “Mikey? Did you—?” She broke off. She had heard gunshots, right? Dazed by the sun, and only now remembering she hadn’t eaten breakfast, Abby flushed with confusion. From high above, from way up in the Highland Park sky, she must look tiny. She must look so strange, a dot on this corner of green, dwarfed by the house.
And then she was sitting on the grass, her vision a field of static. Neil was there—how? His strong hand on the back of her neck, her upper back. That felt so good, his rough hand. She needed the warmth because she was shivering. She bent her head obediently and put it between her knees.
The weight of the groundhog had been surprisingly heavy. Mike got a good one. Neil didn’t understand his freakout after. He barely wanted to talk about the hog, even after Neil said yeah of course he’d take care of it. Yeah, thanks, man. Then something about having to run to get the train. Neil knew Mike had heard him calling, but he just left! Hadn’t he seen all those groundhog babies?
In the garage, Neil buried the wet bag deep in the garbage can and secured the lid with a can of paint. He had no ideas when pickup day was, but it better be soon. Always cleaning up after these people. The thought flashed across his brain as he squeezed past the Tesla whose charging station he’d set up for Mike and May last year. Whatever. There were two North Shores of Chicago, and he’d grown up in the other one. He’d never say these guys didn’t work hard, and it wasn’t May’s fault she came from money—good for her!—but a career made out of catering to rich people gave you a certain perspective.
He came out of the garage just in time to see Abby sort of fall down into the grass.
After a glass of water, and a few minutes in the shade of the patio umbrella, she was fine. Color back in her face, eyes focused. Holy hell, that gave him a scare. Neil hated that faint purple near the corners of her eyes, that tiredness. He could kick Mike’s ass, May too, for keeping them up late, drinking. With Abby then nursing all night with Izzy, Isobel, in their cozy little cave upstairs. Was it dumb that he loved it there, all of them sleeping close together? On the floor with his son, feeling those hard little knees digging into his back, Abby and Isobel in the bed above them. Everything he needed within an arm’s reach. They were so lucky, so goddamn lucky.
Speaking of Freddie, it was almost time for one of them to go pick up the little man. He and Abby stood, stretched. He’d go, let her rest more while Isobel napped. Neil saw Abby glance at the legal pad, the list of a hundred things to do, his phone. He saw her choose not to say anything. They were talking about Mike, Neil trying to describe the way he just bolted, not even answering Neil, not even saying he’d seen the groundhog babies, but he knew Mike must have--
Babies?
Well, fuck. He hadn’t meant to tell Abby and now she was striding across the yard. Then they both stood silently, looking down at five grey-pink lumps inching around at the bottom of the window well.
Afraid she would cry, afraid she would lose it, Neil fumbled to say things he didn’t believe about wildlife rescue, about tiny droppers of milk. In truth, these pups wouldn’t last the day. But his wife, man. He’d been there when Abby labored for nineteen hours straight and when she gentled Freddie in the loss of his house. Her face now was changing rapidly, but when she spoke it was only tender: Ah, Mike.
May moved the girls under a big tree, an old maple with a bench built around its trunk. They were hot, threatened to fuss. There were demands for water bottles, which she didn’t have, and ice cream, which she scoffed at. She tried to get them to practice their handstands and somersaults. Somersaults were called forward rolls at Little Gym, where they went every Tuesday at 5 for Tumbling Tots. Tinsley hadn’t mastered it. She still got stuck with her big head on the ground, unable to push her bottom up and over.
May should never have clicked on the article her friend Greer texted her, a news story about a regional infestation of caterpillars, an infestation in caterpillars—a virus or a bacteria spreading so that caterpillars got sick, then climbed up into trees, harvesting some awful pathogen or parasite, died, then fell down onto the ground and spread the infection to some new batch of caterpillars. She read the worst parts out loud to Abby, who said the whole thing was metaphorical.
But there was nothing metaphorical about the caterpillar in May’s hair!
“Mommy, something’s moving,” Carsten said. Leaning closer to May’s cheek. “There.”
“What?” May swiped at her face. “A bug?”
Tinsley came running over to see. “Caterpillar,” she breathed. “In your hair.”
May lost it. She jumped up from the bench, cursing. She shook her head and her sunglasses went flying. She ripped out her scrunchie. Her whole body shuddered with revulsion, she nearly vomited. “Oh god,” she cried. “Is it gone?” She hopped and shook herself like a madwoman.
“Mommy.” Carsten was at her side. “It’s okay, Mommy.”
“I can still feel it!”
“I’ll check, Mommy. I can.”
May dropped to her knees in the warm grass. She buried her face in her hands. Her mind couldn’t stop flashing image-sensations of rotting creatures crawling across her scalp.
But then Carsten’s little hands busied on the top of her head. Their swift progress, their efficiency. How calm her little girl was, how capable. May kept her eyes shut, willing her nausea to ebb. Tinsley to Carsten, fascinated: “Is it a lice check?”
“No,” Carsten said briskly. “I’m helping Mommy.”
“I want to help!”
Now four hands mussed her hair, scratching and tickling. May laughed, she couldn’t help it. She grabbed their little waists and wrestled them in the middle of the field. We can do hard things. It was a motto from a podcast she loved, two women who faced up to truth every week. Well, she could too. “Come on, goofy goofs. Let’s go home and make a smoothie.”
The girls shot across the grass, already screeching about ingredients and who got to press the button, who got the Bluey cup, you had it last time, NO I DIDN’T!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mike’s walk to the Metra station took nine minutes if he booked it, as he was now. At this time of day—what was it, 11 something?—he wasn’t even sure there would be an on-peak train. Everything about the morning tilted a degree or two off. The sun in the sky, nannies and strollers out on the sidewalks, his own sorrow, horror.
He’d seen the groundhog babies before Neil had. After shooting the mother hog, he’d gone with the rifle out into the yard to make sure it was dead. A few steps outside the toy room he’d caught a squeaking sound. There, behind the bushes at the side of the house. Down in the window well that led to the basement. He’d pulled aside the shrub tangle and saw them: five babies. Slow moving, hairless little lumps. Must have been born in the past day or two.
Mike held the branches down with his foot and he’d raised the gun, but just as quickly lowered it. What overtook him was the absolute need to get away. After that dumbass slip and fall he’d broken down the rifle, and sprinted up the stairs to lock it away. He’d ignored Neil and pretended he’d seen nothing.
But now it was all he could do to fight through a roar of self-loathing. He was almost to the station, slowing down, breathing hard. Thinking about what Abby had said last night, how she perceived him. How he’d loomed over that litter of groundhogs, blind and trapped. The muscle memory of raising the air rifle, one of a thousand sharp fragments inside his brain and body that he just walked around with every day at work at lunch with the girls on a run at church with friends at night by himself.
Mike sat down on the curb, feet in the road, no thought to his work pants. He texted his boss to say he wasn’t coming in. He pushed a call back and forwarded an email to someone on his team. The deli owner in the shop next to the train station leaned out the door and asked if he was all right; Mike raised his hand, all good, thanks. Then he sent a return text, one word to May, responding to the photos she’d sent him from the park: Carsten high in the sky, dare-deviling it on the swing; Tinsley’s head in May’s lap, eyes fluttered closed.
Beautiful.
He would go back home to take care of things. But first Mike searched his email for the thread with Pastor Joan, their conversation left hanging since winter. Pastor Joan had written about a vet group in Stamford, for younger guys like himself. She knew the leader, she thought it could be a good fit. Mike scrolled and scrolled, and a leashed golden retriever passing by swerved over to sniff him, nuzzle his ear.
The earlier haze had evaporated, leaving soft strands of cirrus clouds drifting toward Lake Michigan. A map of the town looks like a human front tooth: squared-off bottom edge, squiggly roots in the north. Tucked into the incisor’s middle would be the house at the corner of Stanley and Lincolnwood: grey-shingled roof, centered chimney, four trees including a blue pine notable in the region for height, for age. Inside the property lines today are eight people, one an infant of only a few days. One pair of roosting English sparrows, a flock of noisy red-wing blackbirds passing overhead. Five—now four—live groundhog pups, a long scattering of secret voles, silent earthworms and nightcrawlers lacing the soil shallow and deep. Innumerable species of insects and all the curated flora of a well-treated suburban lawn.
One after another, these humans gather at the window well. Heads bowed. Hard things.
“Take me with you,” her sister-in-law Abby said, unmoving. She was stretched out on the living room couch, with baby Isobel face down on her chest, one week old today. Big as a loaf of bread. “Or maybe I’ll just give PETA a call. Groundhog slaughter, imminent.”
May could only shake her head, wishing she hadn’t noticed the glass of water she’d brought Abby right there on the coffee table, no coaster. Their house was spacious, a three-bedroom corner-lot Colonial, but not exactly large enough for two families—one in crisis. With one hand she took things away from the girls, an uncapped marker, an indoor lovey, and with another handed them each a hoodie. They chattered a hundred questions, thrown by the change of plans: what about their morning show? And waffles? Those big yellow caterpillars that stuck to the playground swings? With a backward glance at Abby—yes, those first days were impossible for sleep and sanity but still, getting to lie on the couch—May swept her girls out the front, toed aside two packages, and pulled the door shut behind them.
Mike carried the air rifle down from the attic and through the living room, avoiding a too-close look at his sister on the couch in case her boobs were out for nursing. He went into the sunroom. He hadn’t even had a chance to unbox the fucking thing and now every second counted. He sat on one of the girls’ tiny stools and set the box on their crafts table. It was no problem to rip the taped seams but goddamnit these plastic cable ties. Could he snap them? Mike kicked open the door to the back yard to keep an eye on the hog. Then he ransacked the play kitchen without thinking, miniature weightless objects: a little pot, a wedge of plastic cheese, a made-in-fucking-China stalk of broccoli. In search of something sharp he even dumped out a round woven bin, a hundred thousand dolls, before he caught himself. What, did he think there would be a KA-BAR in the dress-up box? He whipped past Abby to get the kitchen shears and she was sitting up now, saying something but he had no time for it’s not hurting anyone, kum-bay-yah, new mom hormones blah blah blah. He’d heard enough from her last night, they all had. Back at the gun he slit the zip ties on the box and carefully moved a stack of Carsten’s preschool worksheets—Insect Sort (Are You An Insect?)—so he could lay out and assemble the scope and stock and break barrel.
Outside on the patio, across the yard, Neil hunched over his phone. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on the groundhog, after all he was the one who spotted it and alerted Mike. But to be honest, he was just glad for a breather in the last hour of the morning before he drove back out to pick up their two-year-old son Freddie from day care. Ten days ago a derecho had swept through Northbrook and landed its force squarely onto his and Abby’s house, a rented two-bedroom near Lake Sherman. Wind at sixty miles an hour tore trees from the ground and hurled them through the back sliding glass doors. Flooding throughout. Another tree came down on the ceiling in the kitchen. The foyer crumpled, door ripped from its hinges. All this occurred fifteen minutes after Abby and Freddie fled in the car with Neil at work on a job site, losing his mind. Six days later, Abby gave birth to Isobel, whom he was apparently not allowed to call Izzy. They were lucky. He knew, Abby knew, everyone knew how lucky they’d been. No one was hurt. The baby was healthy, Abby said the birth was much easier than Freddie’s, and they had a place to stay, thanks to May and Mike. That didn’t mean he loved being told he was lucky. Maybe that’s how they saw it out here in Highland Park. Where he came from, losing your house and half your shit wasn’t something people tried to sell you on. Also if one more person mentioned renter’s insurance he was going to… No, he didn’t have it. Yes, he knew that was dumb. The house had been an under-the-table deal, rented from Abby’s family friends who used it as an occasional lake home. The owners had been nice, of course, concerned for Abby and the family, checking in. Sent flowers. But the owners were now deep in the weeds with their own insurance, the building would likely be demo’ed, and in any case he and Abby and the kids wouldn’t be living there any time soon. Neil scrolled his call list, seeing who could meet him with a truck to help drag out more of their sodden belongings. Movement on the grass caught his eye: that groundhog, snuffling in a wavy line from under a bush.
Instead of nursing Isobel on the couch—her brother didn’t think she could tell he hated it—Abby carried her upstairs. She was raw with exhaustion and needed to sleep, even ten minutes would help. To close her eyes on the madness of this groundhog thing and last night’s argument. The four of them were staying in Tinsley’s room: Abby and Isobel in Tinsley’s new “big girl bed,” Neil on a blow-up mattress on the floor squeezed next to Freddie’s portable crib. Every night they changed places multiple times. Freddie often slept with Neil on the floor, or sometimes in the twin bed with Abby, which meant she handed Isobel down to Neil or sometimes tried to put her in the pack n’ play. Poor Tinsley must be having fits when she glimpsed her room these days—shades always drawn, overflowing bags of clothes jammed into corners, a diaper pad on her dresser. Abby couldn’t bear the mess of that room right now, though, so she let herself into Mike and May’s bedroom, an oasis of peace in comparison. May even still had her glider, now positioned in a corner by the window. It was the Babyletto boucle one, Crate and Barrel had it for $999, which Abby knew from the last weeks of pregnancy—before the derecho—when she was up with acid reflux, scrolling her phone endlessly for stupid pricy furnishings she wished she didn’t want so badly. Now she eased herself carefully into her sister-in-law’s breastfeeding glider—imagine choosing the ivory color—wincing from the stitches. Isobel latched on with ease, she was a total pro, and Abby dug her hand next to her hip, searching for buttons that adjusted the recliner. Her fingernail snagged on something. Was that a USB port? Yes. Yes it was. This undid her, the tears sliding forth effortlessly. It happened several times a day, frequently while nursing. Why a fucking USB port in the side of a chair meant to rock a baby? How did her little brother Mikey, who used to pick his nose and wipe his finger on his stuffed Dino, have all of this? Where was her family going to live? What about Freddie’s toys, their photo albums, her clothes? How could Neil take off more unpaid time? What if she ran out of maternity leave before they figured things out? Were Freddie’s nightmares normal or should she call someone, who, the pediatrician? Where was her water glass, she was so thirsty. Isobel’s perfect face smushed up against her breast, tiny eyelashes fluttering. Abby sank back, drained. Then she heard the shots.
The school playground was around the curve of Lincolnwood, walkable for May and the girls in fifteen if Tinsley was in a good mood. Carsten would start at the kindergarten in September, so they called it Big Girl School, which had been a mistake. Carsten had a way of emphasizing the phrase oh so innocently while Tinsley’s expression darkened. Today May hurried them past the front entrance and onto the field. Go, she said, and they took off. Hurtled through dewy grass toward the play structure, the swings. For a second she paused, thinking she’d heard something. The air gun? But she had no idea what it would sound like, and the wide spring morning had already absorbed all noise along with the girls’ far-off shouts. Who got to ride the zip line first. May stood in the grass and texted Mike what’s going on? Update pls. Then Abby: did he do it? Her head was pounding, a hangover headache like two heavy stones under her forehead, her eyebrows. They’d overdone it last night, as with the night before, and the night before that. Once all the kids were finally in bed—well, except for Isobel—some serious drinking took place. A way for the four of them to handle the sheer fucked-up situation of Abby and Neil’s home, the outrageous timing with Abby giving birth days later, all of them crammed in May’s house for the foreseeable future. What else could you do but refill the wine glass, and get beer after beer from the basement fridge. Even Abby partook, though minimally, and god knows she looked rough in the mornings too. They all did. It still stung, the way her sister-in-law had goaded her last night (draped like Cleopatra on May’s own couch!), all that you’re as bad as he is, flapping a baby cloth at her brother Mike. She liked to do that, poke at May for not standing up to her husband, and as usual May found it hard to defend herself, all turned around between brother and sister. No, Abby, she hadn’t loved the moment she opened that Amazon box to find a freaking gun. But also, she hated that groundhog! Ankle breaker holes in the yard, bacteria-filled poop piles, the gross humped shape of the thing. But Abby couldn’t stop. Why hadn’t they investigated humane options, why not call in professionals, some bougie service, I mean obviously money isn’t an object. She’d played it like a joke, with a laugh and a shrug. May had wanted to fling wine in her face. Wine she’d bought for them!
A scream from Tinsley made her head jerk up: a fierce summons for swing pushing. Her youngest’s bare feet dangled and she twisted furiously, uselessly, side to side on the unmoving swing. May drew Tinsley back, back, back, and then let her fly. A light tap on her small back each time it returned. No coaching today on how to pump. The sky, even overcast, was too bright in her eyes. May hated how much Mike drank, and how she drank more than she wanted to, in order to make it even. Or normal: two stressed-out parents with young kids, a scary mortgage, everyone did it, etc. How many other new dads in Highland Park had been Marines, vets from both Iraq and Afghanistan? Mike’s ability to use a rifle—this morning—wasn’t from weekend hunting trips in Wisconsin like the kind Neil did with his father and brother. She knew he didn’t want to share with her, or anyone really, what he’d been through in those places. He worked long hours, he went to church with her and the girls every Sunday. So what if last winter he’d delighted Carsten by building her an igloo in the basement out of empty Michelob twelve pack boxes? May made sure not to post any of those photos.
With one hand she texted him everything okay? His immediate response: don’t bring them back yet.
Two shots. They clicked off as smooth as he could want, pop pop, the baby rounds juicing a little adrenaline through his circuits, which was embarrassing. Mike raised his head from the scope, flat on his stomach in the toy room, belt buckle digging into his upper groin. He’d nailed that hog, two in the head, and now it lay still in the grass. About thirty yards, just past the crab apple where Carsten loved to hang from her hands and scrabble her feet wildly, trying to kick up to a branch she could climb. Ha. Fuck you, Abby. He wasn’t really angry at his sister but her teasing last night--calm down, soldier of fortune—had grated.
“You get it?” Neil yelled, from over on the patio. Shit. He’d actually forgotten Neil was out there.
“All good,” Mike called back, pushing up on his forearms. Now all he had to do was handle the aftermath, and get into the city before his workday was too fucked. Squinting from the bright sky, he stepped out into the yard.
But what he saw there was bad, was all wrong, and less than a minute later he was back inside. Rapid spreading warmth in his chest and face, a delayed pounding. It’s fine, he told himself. You’re good. He went to break down the rifle and slipped sideways in the small space of the sunroom. Knocked over the crafts table and—the worst part—dropped his rifle. Dropped his fucking weapon. Like some kind of noob, civilian. Someone they would have ragged on for weeks.
Boot, the guy they called Boot. This kid from South Carolina, he went through all training like a wild man, never shut up about how stoked he was to get over there and fight. He goes from Kaneohe Bay to Camp Lejeune, Lejeune to Balad Air Base, Balad to Haditha, and on his first day in country he falls off a four-foot ladder and breaks his femur. Medevaced back the way he came, into traction at Walter Reed for like three months. As far as Mike knew, the guy never made it to combat. Didn’t stop him from coming to every reunion though.
Mike stayed on the floor. Neil was calling to him from outside and his phone buzzed in his pocket, probably May, but he ignored all of it. His hands were twitchy and damp, and the air was weird, cottony. Mike blinked. His vision clicked back and forth as if he were looking in and out of the scope. There were silver-framed black-and-white photos of the girls on the wall, and they popped toward him and away, close and then away. One was of May on the morning of Tinsley’s baptism, holding her face-out, Tin’s tiny bare feet dangling over May’s forearm. May had her head cocked, slight smile, and Mike loved this one, her shooting him that knowing look of tired happiness--can you believe this—an expression encompassing everything, this crazy full life together, sex on Saturday mornings while Carsten was in the next room watching CocoMelon, how Tinsley said the color “lellow,” the day they closed on this house, their dream home, their forever home. All flowing through the camera lens to him, only to him, from May’s expression on the wall.
He shut his eyes. Inside his throat something surged up, sour and sad. No, he couldn’t think about what he’d done. He had to get out of here.
Neil’s voice, getting closer. “Uh, hey man. Better come see this.”
Abby eased Isobel off her nipple, rolled softly forward to standing. Her stitches tugged hard at the motion. She wiped her face with the back of her sweatshirt cuff and gently bounced back and forth in front of May’s dresser. With one hand she brushed her hair using May’s brush, the boar bristle kind that Kate Middleton owned, avoiding her own reflection in the mirror. Last night she’d overdone it, come down too hard on Mike. On all of them, in fact. But the situation was barbaric, and if no one else was going to say it… Shoot an animal in his own goddamn yard? For no other reason than inconvenience! What if he only wounded it, and the thing staggered away to die slowly, in pain and fear? Jesus, was she the only one who saw the whole picture?
Isobel burped softly. Abby climbed up onto her brother’s bed, knee-walked to its enormous middle, and lowered Isobel into the center of the crisp white duvet cover.
Outside, or downstairs, Neil’s voice was high, excited. That wasn’t his on-the-phone-with-insurance voice. How many calls had he made? Not for the first time she wished they could switch roles. For someone whose job depended on customer service—he was an electrician for high-end residences—Neil could be a pushover. On the other hand, he had no problem walking a fussy baby from 3 to 5 am, something that drove Abby to despair. Maybe she should transition Isobel to formula, have Neil take on more night duty. Abby laid her head on her arm, curled next to her baby. No, she was afraid of any more change. They’d been through too much. In any case, probably a good idea she wasn’t on insurance phone duty. Abby sensed she might lose her shit entirely on some poor call center employee, and she might enjoy it too.
Pounding footfalls up and down the creaky attic staircase. The voices of Neil and Mike, and then the front door slammed. Thank god Isobel was out, arms akimbo, mouth soft and open. Abby tried to understand. Had that been Neil calling to Mike, in a tone of disbelief? For a long minute she waited motionless in the middle of the soothing light grey and buttercream accented room. All she wanted was to doze into the dream-state of her baby’s perfect face. Instead, she went softly downstairs.
May’s house (she knew it was Mike’s house too, but fuck her if she was going to think of it that way) was cool and quiet. Empty-seeming. She looked in the kitchen, bags and bags of recycling that needed to go out. No one in the TV room either, but she noticed that all her family’s stuff—Freddie’s toys, Neil’s fleece, the pressure-relief donut she sat on—had been corralled into a basket placed neatly at one end of the sectional. She listened for Isobel, then eased open the sliding screen door onto the porch. Neil’s phone was face down on the patio table, on top of the legal pad filled with notes, names, phone numbers.
“Neil?”
Abby went down the wood stairs and tentatively out onto the lawn. She was barefoot. Was there a dead animal on the grass, would she step on it? “Mikey? Did you—?” She broke off. She had heard gunshots, right? Dazed by the sun, and only now remembering she hadn’t eaten breakfast, Abby flushed with confusion. From high above, from way up in the Highland Park sky, she must look tiny. She must look so strange, a dot on this corner of green, dwarfed by the house.
And then she was sitting on the grass, her vision a field of static. Neil was there—how? His strong hand on the back of her neck, her upper back. That felt so good, his rough hand. She needed the warmth because she was shivering. She bent her head obediently and put it between her knees.
The weight of the groundhog had been surprisingly heavy. Mike got a good one. Neil didn’t understand his freakout after. He barely wanted to talk about the hog, even after Neil said yeah of course he’d take care of it. Yeah, thanks, man. Then something about having to run to get the train. Neil knew Mike had heard him calling, but he just left! Hadn’t he seen all those groundhog babies?
In the garage, Neil buried the wet bag deep in the garbage can and secured the lid with a can of paint. He had no ideas when pickup day was, but it better be soon. Always cleaning up after these people. The thought flashed across his brain as he squeezed past the Tesla whose charging station he’d set up for Mike and May last year. Whatever. There were two North Shores of Chicago, and he’d grown up in the other one. He’d never say these guys didn’t work hard, and it wasn’t May’s fault she came from money—good for her!—but a career made out of catering to rich people gave you a certain perspective.
He came out of the garage just in time to see Abby sort of fall down into the grass.
After a glass of water, and a few minutes in the shade of the patio umbrella, she was fine. Color back in her face, eyes focused. Holy hell, that gave him a scare. Neil hated that faint purple near the corners of her eyes, that tiredness. He could kick Mike’s ass, May too, for keeping them up late, drinking. With Abby then nursing all night with Izzy, Isobel, in their cozy little cave upstairs. Was it dumb that he loved it there, all of them sleeping close together? On the floor with his son, feeling those hard little knees digging into his back, Abby and Isobel in the bed above them. Everything he needed within an arm’s reach. They were so lucky, so goddamn lucky.
Speaking of Freddie, it was almost time for one of them to go pick up the little man. He and Abby stood, stretched. He’d go, let her rest more while Isobel napped. Neil saw Abby glance at the legal pad, the list of a hundred things to do, his phone. He saw her choose not to say anything. They were talking about Mike, Neil trying to describe the way he just bolted, not even answering Neil, not even saying he’d seen the groundhog babies, but he knew Mike must have--
Babies?
Well, fuck. He hadn’t meant to tell Abby and now she was striding across the yard. Then they both stood silently, looking down at five grey-pink lumps inching around at the bottom of the window well.
Afraid she would cry, afraid she would lose it, Neil fumbled to say things he didn’t believe about wildlife rescue, about tiny droppers of milk. In truth, these pups wouldn’t last the day. But his wife, man. He’d been there when Abby labored for nineteen hours straight and when she gentled Freddie in the loss of his house. Her face now was changing rapidly, but when she spoke it was only tender: Ah, Mike.
May moved the girls under a big tree, an old maple with a bench built around its trunk. They were hot, threatened to fuss. There were demands for water bottles, which she didn’t have, and ice cream, which she scoffed at. She tried to get them to practice their handstands and somersaults. Somersaults were called forward rolls at Little Gym, where they went every Tuesday at 5 for Tumbling Tots. Tinsley hadn’t mastered it. She still got stuck with her big head on the ground, unable to push her bottom up and over.
May should never have clicked on the article her friend Greer texted her, a news story about a regional infestation of caterpillars, an infestation in caterpillars—a virus or a bacteria spreading so that caterpillars got sick, then climbed up into trees, harvesting some awful pathogen or parasite, died, then fell down onto the ground and spread the infection to some new batch of caterpillars. She read the worst parts out loud to Abby, who said the whole thing was metaphorical.
But there was nothing metaphorical about the caterpillar in May’s hair!
“Mommy, something’s moving,” Carsten said. Leaning closer to May’s cheek. “There.”
“What?” May swiped at her face. “A bug?”
Tinsley came running over to see. “Caterpillar,” she breathed. “In your hair.”
May lost it. She jumped up from the bench, cursing. She shook her head and her sunglasses went flying. She ripped out her scrunchie. Her whole body shuddered with revulsion, she nearly vomited. “Oh god,” she cried. “Is it gone?” She hopped and shook herself like a madwoman.
“Mommy.” Carsten was at her side. “It’s okay, Mommy.”
“I can still feel it!”
“I’ll check, Mommy. I can.”
May dropped to her knees in the warm grass. She buried her face in her hands. Her mind couldn’t stop flashing image-sensations of rotting creatures crawling across her scalp.
But then Carsten’s little hands busied on the top of her head. Their swift progress, their efficiency. How calm her little girl was, how capable. May kept her eyes shut, willing her nausea to ebb. Tinsley to Carsten, fascinated: “Is it a lice check?”
“No,” Carsten said briskly. “I’m helping Mommy.”
“I want to help!”
Now four hands mussed her hair, scratching and tickling. May laughed, she couldn’t help it. She grabbed their little waists and wrestled them in the middle of the field. We can do hard things. It was a motto from a podcast she loved, two women who faced up to truth every week. Well, she could too. “Come on, goofy goofs. Let’s go home and make a smoothie.”
The girls shot across the grass, already screeching about ingredients and who got to press the button, who got the Bluey cup, you had it last time, NO I DIDN’T!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mike’s walk to the Metra station took nine minutes if he booked it, as he was now. At this time of day—what was it, 11 something?—he wasn’t even sure there would be an on-peak train. Everything about the morning tilted a degree or two off. The sun in the sky, nannies and strollers out on the sidewalks, his own sorrow, horror.
He’d seen the groundhog babies before Neil had. After shooting the mother hog, he’d gone with the rifle out into the yard to make sure it was dead. A few steps outside the toy room he’d caught a squeaking sound. There, behind the bushes at the side of the house. Down in the window well that led to the basement. He’d pulled aside the shrub tangle and saw them: five babies. Slow moving, hairless little lumps. Must have been born in the past day or two.
Mike held the branches down with his foot and he’d raised the gun, but just as quickly lowered it. What overtook him was the absolute need to get away. After that dumbass slip and fall he’d broken down the rifle, and sprinted up the stairs to lock it away. He’d ignored Neil and pretended he’d seen nothing.
But now it was all he could do to fight through a roar of self-loathing. He was almost to the station, slowing down, breathing hard. Thinking about what Abby had said last night, how she perceived him. How he’d loomed over that litter of groundhogs, blind and trapped. The muscle memory of raising the air rifle, one of a thousand sharp fragments inside his brain and body that he just walked around with every day at work at lunch with the girls on a run at church with friends at night by himself.
Mike sat down on the curb, feet in the road, no thought to his work pants. He texted his boss to say he wasn’t coming in. He pushed a call back and forwarded an email to someone on his team. The deli owner in the shop next to the train station leaned out the door and asked if he was all right; Mike raised his hand, all good, thanks. Then he sent a return text, one word to May, responding to the photos she’d sent him from the park: Carsten high in the sky, dare-deviling it on the swing; Tinsley’s head in May’s lap, eyes fluttered closed.
Beautiful.
He would go back home to take care of things. But first Mike searched his email for the thread with Pastor Joan, their conversation left hanging since winter. Pastor Joan had written about a vet group in Stamford, for younger guys like himself. She knew the leader, she thought it could be a good fit. Mike scrolled and scrolled, and a leashed golden retriever passing by swerved over to sniff him, nuzzle his ear.
The earlier haze had evaporated, leaving soft strands of cirrus clouds drifting toward Lake Michigan. A map of the town looks like a human front tooth: squared-off bottom edge, squiggly roots in the north. Tucked into the incisor’s middle would be the house at the corner of Stanley and Lincolnwood: grey-shingled roof, centered chimney, four trees including a blue pine notable in the region for height, for age. Inside the property lines today are eight people, one an infant of only a few days. One pair of roosting English sparrows, a flock of noisy red-wing blackbirds passing overhead. Five—now four—live groundhog pups, a long scattering of secret voles, silent earthworms and nightcrawlers lacing the soil shallow and deep. Innumerable species of insects and all the curated flora of a well-treated suburban lawn.
One after another, these humans gather at the window well. Heads bowed. Hard things.